


The White Crown

by greygerbil



Category: A Song of Ice and Fire - George R. R. Martin
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-03-08
Updated: 2014-03-08
Packaged: 2018-01-15 00:47:50
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,501
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1285003
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/greygerbil/pseuds/greygerbil
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>The onion knight and the rightful princess of the Seven Kingdoms meet and talk about flowers and politics.</p>
            </blockquote>





	The White Crown

**Author's Note:**

> Written for a prompt that asked for Davos acting paternal towards Shireen and Shireen having a moment of happiness.

Davos heard Patchface’s bells before he saw him. There was never any music to them, no sweet chime; they sounded more like the steel on steel of a fight and a little out of place in Aegon’s blooming garden, with the salty wind from the sea brushing through the green trees, a gentle rustle merging with the far-off sound of waves.

Of course, what with the Targaryans’ history and the new thunderclouds over the realm after King Robert’s death, perhaps battle noises were more fitting after all, Davos thought.

The fool broke through the wild rose bushes into the sunlit meadow that Davos had found himself on after wandering past the arched Dragon’s Tail and further down the path until it dissolved into trampled earth, half-overgrown. The late summer was still going strong, the warmth not waning this evening even under the shadows of the Dragon Keep’s thick stone walls, and colourful flowers were crushed under Patchface’s feet.

“Under the sea the wind blows upwards and the fishes build houses in the seaweed, I know, I know, oh, oh, oh...”

Giggling, Shireen broke out of the underbrush after him, leaves caught in her dark hair and her usually pale cheeks glowing red with exhaustion, except where the skin faded into grey scales that could show no signs of life. When she caught sight of Davos, though, she stopped dead in her tracks.

“Oh,” she exclaimed, out of breath, dropping the fine blue dress cloth that she’d bunched up carelessly in her hands so it wouldn’t hinder her running. “Ser Davos.”

“Good evening, my lady,” Davos said, bowing.

“Are you searching for my Lord father? He just returned the other night.”

“Yes, I know, my lady. I was with him. I missed dinner because he called me to him and I just wanted to greet you.”

Shireen smiled. People said she was an unsightly child and Davos supposed he had to agree. Her parents’ features had combined in the worst ways and the greyscale had left much of her skin looking like the stone of a pier that had been made rough by the salty water over the years. However, she had eyes as blue as the sea and a pleasing way of treating people. Marya had broken her nose as a child and it hadn’t been set right, so it had always grown a little to the left. That had not made her less of a wife or mother nor a worse head of their household when Davos was away. In the end, Davos thought, the cut of Shireen’s jaws or the angle of her ears would not decide whether she’d become a great lady.

“That’s why Devan was not with Maester Pylos and me today,” Shireen deduced as she came to his side.

“That’s right. Though I won’t let him skip too many lessons.”

They walked for a moment in silence, apart from the whispering wind in the leaves and the metallic noise of Patchface ambling after them. Davos liked Shireen and though he considered himself certainly below the level where he should hand out advice on how to treat his children to Stannis, he could see the girl hardly got any attention from him or his wife. Especially now that this Red Lady had made her appearance, she was kept, silent and sad as too often, aside while her parents cared about things Shireen knew all too well were more important than her.

Davos only now noticed she was clutching flowers in her hand as she lifted them to remove an insect crawling over a white rose’s petals.

“Are you making a flower wreath?” He asked her.

“No.” Shireen looked up. “I tried once, but it fell apart. I’m just collecting them.”

“I think I could help. I used to make them with the girls when I was a lad.”

It had been nice to escape the smell of Flea Bottom every once in a while, even if it meant he usually had to be in the company of two older girls who lived across the muddy street, offspring of a kindly, older whore, who promised his mother to watch him and then dressed him up in flowers and leaves like he was one of their rag dolls.

Shireen handed over her flowers.

“You need to find me a thin, bendable stick, a young one, or some blades of reed. The flowers that you pick need long stems, so pick them right where they come out of the earth, my lady.”

Shireen quickly nodded he head, running off to the skirt of the grove. She would have her tenth nameday soon and Davos had suspected she might already a bit too old for this sort of play, but she looked happy enough as she considered the reed grass growing around a thick tree. Finally, she chose some blades and brought them back to him. In the time, Davos had sat down on a small boulder and taken off his leather gloves.

“I don’t know of any men who can make flower wreaths,” Shireen said as she knelt down by his feet.

“I think you do now.” Davos smiled. “You know, my lady, I always thought it would be nice to have a girl alongside my sons. I don’t think Davon would appreciate a flower wreath. Or shall we make one for him, too, so he can wear it to court?”

Shireen grinned at the mental image. Her thin fingers deposited a handful of daisies next to him.

“No one wants a girl, though,” she said with the easy self-assuredness of one who had no reason to doubt her words. “Girls can’t have their father’s names or lands. Maester Pylus told me.” She paused. “In Dorne they can,” she added, “but not here.”

Immediately, Davos wondered how much talk she’d already heard about who would follow Robert on the throne and that one argument that even his own followers levelled against Stannis – that he had not yet managed to produce a son and only had a sickly daughter to follow in his footsteps, making his reign maybe only a respite till the next succession war.

Much had been harder where Davos came from and he was sure he Shireen wouldn’t have wanted to swap, but when no one had anything to their name, when they didn’t even have a name to pass on at all, then it became a bit less important whether you had a son who would spend his life away on a boat or farm to earn the coin to feed himself, or a girl who’d leave the house to marry. With nothing but herself to bring to the table in a marriage, no other worth than her person and thus not a figure in anyone’s game, Shireen might in time have even found a similarly poor boy who came to like her for the kind woman she would likely grow into. Of course, had she been born low, Shireen probably would not have survived her bout of Greyscale as a child. Really, it was hard to imagine a place in life where a girl like Shireen might have a chance to grow up to be content.

“All parents feel lucky to have their children, my lady, be they lads or lasses,” Davos said, eventually, because at least that was how it should be. In truth, he could not say about Lady Selyse. However, he might be the only one who could at least suspect this of Stannis without feeling he had to lie. To distract her, he waved Shireen to him. “I will be in need of your help.”

Davos had tied a loop out of the reed and held up his mutilated hand for her to see, just briefly. Shireen knew it and the story behind the missing finger parts, but like most children, she had a bit of a taste for the scary and violent, as long as it was not trying to get to her, and she took another interested look at his short fingers.

“Enough for steering a boat, but I won’t be tying small flowers with it too fast,” Davos explained. “If we work together, we can get it done before nightfall.”

Her dexterous, small fingers were quite well suited for tying the small flower stalks. Davos made sure to fasten the white roses she’d collected first.

“Why so many white ones? It would be prettier with more colourful flowers,” Shireen protested.

Davos indicated the wide blossoms.

“The small colourful ones will sit better on the wide white petals. You need a broad basis on which to rest the delicate ones and support them.”

Shireen looked at him thoughtfully. “That sounds like what Maester Pylus told me just this morning.”

Raising a brow, Davos looked up from his work. “I thought he taught you reading and history, my lady.”

The girl nodded her head. “Yes. He said a king can only rule for long if he has the support of the lesser lords and knights. Otherwise someone will rise up and there’ll be a usurper and the king falls.” With her finger, she indicated a daisy she’d tried to tie to the loop of reed. The small stem could not hold it up on its own, leaving it to droop sadly. “You were right about the flowers.”

The onion knight looked at her with surprise, then laughed, biting down on that bitter thought that Maester Pylos was right as well and Stannis might be on his way to prove it. Davos would sail to the storm lords for him, but he had little hope already. The former smuggler forced his thoughts back to the matter at hand.

“It’s as you say, my lady. It does sound quite similar, but I wouldn’t have thought to make the connection. Maybe we should be teaching the boys to make flower wreaths, after all.”

Shireen smiled her sweet smile, for once a little more proud than sad. Despite the trouble ahead, it made Davos’ heart a little lighter to see it on her face. They worked together quickly and by the time the sun sank behind the walls of Dragonstone, the wreath was finished and not looking half-bad, in Davos’ opinion.

Davos pushed a last crystal-blue flower in place and sat down on one knee in front of Shireen, holding the wreath above her head, his expression too grave to be serious. Shireen giggled as she demurely lowered her head, playing along. Patchface, who’d kept his distance up to now, softly singing to himself, jumped up and down, which produced a racket worthy of a whole crowd cheering on a coronation.

“My crown,” Shireen said.

“For the princess of the Seven Kingdoms,” Davos agreed, though feeling uneasy, as if making a false promise. Still, since Stannis had declared the throne his, that was her title now. “From your own hands’ work.”

“It was mostly yours,” Shireen said. “Thank you, onion knight. Will you come inside with me? I want to look at it in a mirror.”

“Of course. It’s getting late, too.”

The sun was bathing Dragonstone’s walls in blood and flames – fire. Despite the warm summer evening, Davos felt a shiver crawl up his spine as he thought about the queen’s guest. For a moment, he wished he could’ve staid here and played with the princess a little while longer. The darkness had never scared him, but the fire inside the castle walls now did.

They passed by a group of tall trees, heading back towards the Dragon’s Tail. However, through the darkening light of the evening, two figures stepped towards them. Davos almost believed he must have summoned her with his thoughts like an evil spirit, the lady in red at walking at Stannis’ side like a flicker of flame.

Shireen smiled at the approaching pair.

“Ser Davos made me a crown, father,” she said, touching the flowers. “I helped.”

Stannis raised his brows at him. “Ser Davos has nothing better to do?”

“Is it pretty?” Shireen asked Melisandre, before Davos could answer.

The beautiful woman leaned down with a smile, touching Shireen’s shoulder. “My princess, you will have much prettier crowns, and they will last longer, besides.”

Shireen looked up at her for a moment. “I like this one just fine,” she replied.

“My lady, escort Shireen to the castle. We will meet up with you at the Stone Drum,” Stannis ordered Melisandre.

The red lady bowed her head and Davos couldn’t shake the feeling that she was looking at him, the way a cat looked at a mouse through a paw-sized hole in the wall, before she turned around.

“As you wish, my king.”

When Shireen waved him goodbye, Davos lifted the hand with the shortened fingers, waving even as he caught another displeased look from Stannis.

“It’s too late for her to be outside. And you, onion knight, should’ve better brought her to her room than waste your time picking flowers. Can I fill your place at my table with a common milk maid?”

“I wouldn’t call it wasted time,” Davos said, keeping his voice gentle as if the difference could take the sharpness from Stannis’ tone. “I should think she would’ve liked you to say a word about her flower wreath, too. She wants your attention,” he dared to continue.

Stannis clenched his jaw. “As if I had time for child’s play. I have more important crowns to concern myself with.”

“Which you wish to give to her one day. Do you want to pass on nothing of yourself but a piece of metal, my lord?”

At this rate, that was all she was going to know about her own father: that he was a king, hard and cruel. Maybe Davos was just a smuggler, but he had seven sons of his own and knew a bit about raising children. Those who looked with distant fear and apprehension upon their parents hardly ever wanted to become like them – and that would be a shame. What made Stannis lack as a father, his stern, cold, uncompromising nature, made him great and honourable as a leader of men. Sad, sweet Shireen could use a little of that steel in her father’s backbone to weather the storms that would no doubt befall her.

Stannis looked down the unpaved way, where his daughter, Patchface and the red lady walked beneath the Dragon’s Tail in a last golden beam. Though Patchface’s bells caught the sun and blinked like stars and the red lady was radiant, Davos was quite sure he saw Stannis’ gaze resting on his daughter. Her crown, white-blossomed with colourful dots, grew bright in the dying day’s light and shone still dully in the shadow that they passed into.

No reproach came to Davos’ daring words.

“Come,” Stannis said, eventually, turning his gaze back to the jagged towers of the Dragon’s Keep as he started walking. “We have a long night ahead of us. My crown can’t be plucked from the meadow.”


End file.
